


Ghost at the Table

by MagalaBee



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Light Angst, gotta love the lion cub quartet huh?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22320928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagalaBee/pseuds/MagalaBee
Summary: There weren't any ghosts at Garreg Mach, save but one. One that only Felix could ever see.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	Ghost at the Table

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! If you like this one-shot, then please leave Kudos and Comments with your thoughts. 
> 
> Special shout out to my wonderful [Rey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugareign) for her help with beta reading this!!

“Got you again,” Sylvain said, his voice was teasing. Felix didn’t even have to look up to know Ingrid was frowning. He could tell she was confused, and she always pouted when she was confused.

“But that’s not how pawns jump,” she protested. Stickler for rules. “Only diagonal jumps, Sylvain.”

“It’s called an  _ en passant _ , Inga,” he reminded her, using their childhood nicknames to help lower Ingrid’s competitive hackles. “I’m teaching you something.”

Felix let out a small sigh as he turned the page. Garreg Mach didn’t see much snow in the autumn, but the trees had turned to warm gold and orange. The air was cold enough to justify lighting fireplaces in the reception hall. It made the vast, open space feel cozy. The three of them had staked their claim on a table near enough to the fireplaces that Felix could feel the soft warmth of it seep into him like an embrace. 

The book he was reading made him feel arm too, warm and comforted. It was an old book that Ashe had insisted he read, and the first chapter alone had made Felix nostalgic for days gone by.

He remembered older games and squealing laughter and snowballs hurled back and forth. Ingrid had had rules to follow back then, too, but she had been much more willing to break them when they were little. Sylvain had kept them all from breaking their limbs and Felix almost smiled on his next breath.

“Felix, is Sylvain making this up?” Ingrid asked, and finally, Felix looked up from the pages. His amber eyes scanned the chessboard. Truth be told, he had never enjoyed chess much. He never understood it when they were little, and now he just resented a game so focused on war and kings.

“Like I care,” he grunted instead.

Sylvain chuckled and propped his chin in his hand, leaning over the table on a bent elbow. “It’s alright, Ingrid, just accept your inevitable defeat.”

Ingrid pouted and rolled her eyes. “It’s not checkmate yet.”

Felix turned the next page, resisting the urge to smile again. But the urge was quickly snuffed out when a fourth approached their table.

“Is Sylvain winning again?” the boar prince asked. He was smiling, and that only made Felix scowl. 

Ingrid looked up at the boar and shrugged. “He always wins, I’m just too stubborn to accept it.”

Sylvain let out a short hoot of laughter. “She admits it!”

The boar laughed too. Felix glared at him from over the top of his book. Silently, in his head, he wished for the prince to leave. To turn around and go. To be suddenly called away by their professor or Dedue or anything else. But, of course, he didn’t.

Instead, the boar sat down next to Ingrid, patting her on the shoulder in imitation of sympathy. Felix’s shoulders tensed. He felt the air of the reception hall grow warmer with each breath the boar let out. 

“If it helps, I don’t think any of us have been able to beat him,” the boar said, his voice hollow behind its mirth.

Only Felix could hear that sorrowful, empty echo. Ingrid and Sylvain still thought he was whole. 

“I wonder if you could beat the Professor,” Ingrid teased, sliding her bishop across the chessboard. “I bet she could teach you a thing or two about chess.”

Sylvain smirked and slid out his knight, seemingly into open space. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just let her win for extra credit.”

The boar chuckled again and Felix hated how convincing that laughter was. If he hadn’t been there at the western rebellion himself, he would have believed it.

Felix told himself that this was why Sylvain and Ingrid could never understand. They hadn’t been there. They hadn’t seen their prince covered in blood, grinning ear to ear and laughing so hard that he wheezed. They hadn’t seen their friend turn into a monster and talk to ghosts in his violence.

There was only one ghost amongst them now, breathing a stale, intangible fog into the room. Just one who had never quite learned how to live again.

“Checkmate,” Sylvain declared on his next turn.

“What--” Ingrid blanched. She looked at the board, but Felix’s eyes didn’t waver. He hadn’t stopped watching the boar since he sat down. 

The boar prince chuckled. “He’s right, Ingrid, I fear you have been defeated once again.”

She leaned back in her seat and rolled her eyes. “I just thought I’d last longer this time. You playing next, Felix?”

They were all looking at him now, and he was still glowering at the boar. The emptiness behind those blue eyes and the rigid mimicry in his posture. It was a fake. An empty shell left behind of the friend who had died with his brother.

“No,” Felix snapped, closing the book sharply and standing up. “I hate chess.”

“Aw, come on, Felix, don’t you want to try?” Ingrid asked. He knew that she was just trying to include him, to keep him a part of their small tangle of friendship. If it had stayed just the three of them, then he would have agreed. He would have been beaten soundly by Sylvain and seen Ingrid smile and laugh.

But he couldn’t stomach being here. Sitting too close to that cavernous corpse and its empty laughter. The air in the reception hall was too thick and burning in his throat.

“I’m leaving,” Felix muttered as he began to stalk away from the table. He couldn’t breathe, he wanted to go outside.

“I’ll play,” he heard the boar offer as he left. A shudder ran down his back. Sylvain accepted the new challenge, and Felix knew that three of them would keep playing and laughing, even after he left. Felix was only spoiling his own afternoon.

But he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand the person who used to be his best friend. He couldn’t stand the two closest people in his life be blind to it. He would rather go to the training grounds and run himself ragged.

As he stepped outside, the air was cold and crisp. Leaves crunched under his boots and as he remembered how to breathe again, he shook off the ghost of a life they had all lost long ago.


End file.
